Massachusetts Republicans move to protect Trump in 2020 primary

The Massachusetts Republican Party is aiming to protect President Donald Trump from primary challengers such as former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld by approving a new winner-takes-all delegate plan.

The MassGOP approved the 2020 plan last week and will now award all of the party's delegates to the Republican candidate who clears more than 50 percent of the vote in the state presidential primary. The strategy is a departure from the 2016 primary, when the state party used a proportional method to award delegates to the 17 Republicans running for president.

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The delegate plan is the latest example of a shifting Massachusetts Republican Party under Chair Jim Lyons, who was elected in January. And the change was not without controversy — Lyons said that at a MassGOP meeting last Tuesday, two state committee members spoke against the rule, and more than a dozen spoke in favor of it before it was approved.

Critics say the winner-takes-all strategy inappropriately protects Trump from a primary challenger like Weld, but according to Lyons, the delegate strategy will push Republicans to focus on gaining ground in local and statewide elections.

"We want to keep the emphasis on trying to protect all of our elected officials in the Statehouse and to trying to add more seats in the Legislature," said Lyons, a former state representative. "Local town committees will be more focused on trying to elect state representatives and state senators."

Even before the rule change, Weld was facing an uphill climb. Trump is leading Weld 72 percent to 17 percent among Republican voters in neighboring New Hampshire, according to a recent poll from Suffolk University and The Boston Globe.

And if the rule change is replicated in state parties across the country, it could prevent Weld from making any sort of dent at the Republican National Convention next summer. Weld campaign adviser Stuart Stevens said the rule change looks like a sign of weakness on Trump's part.

"I've never heard of anybody trying to block an election they were going to win easily," Stevens said. "Parties can change these rules when they want to change them. All you can do is just go forward and offer an alternative."

But eliminating the proportional delegate process frees up time and money the party would spend on caucuses, according to Trump's 2016 Massachusetts state director Dean Cavaretta.

"Why go through that when we want to generally support the incumbent?" Cavaretta said. "We don't need to go down that road if voters overwhelmingly support that candidate."

Bill Weld was governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997 and the vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party in 2016. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

Lyons called the delegate rule change "a locally driven initiative" that came from Massachusetts activists, rather than Washington. But Trump's influence on state committees across the country has been well-documented. The state party also passed a resolution that says the the delegate process is not binding for any future state committee, according to Lyons.

"The president's campaign has been actively engaging state parties as they consider rule changes," a Trump campaign spokesperson said. "We were in support of the changes the party's grassroots initiated in Massachusetts and are happy with its passage. As we've stated before, whatever rules are in place, we are confident the president will be overwhelmingly successful."

The Weld campaign is making a play for independent voters, millennial Republicans and suburban women in the 2020 primary. As a Reagan appointee who supervised Robert Mueller at the Department of Justice in the 1980s, Weld views himself as an anti-corruption foil to Trump.

"This is my sixth presidential race, and the one thing I've learned is whatever you think is gonna happen, isn't gonna happen," said Stevens, who worked on the George W. Bush campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and for Mitt Romney in 2012. "You never can predict — it might make it easier. I could foresee a situation where the Trump people try to change those rules."

The former governor lives a one-hour drive from the early voting state of New Hampshire, and hopes to make an impact with first-in-the-nation primary voters.

"It's the party. Where's the RNC? They're with the president," Stevens said. "State parties being in sync with voters is not to be assumed."

Lyons has been an outspoken critic of Weld's presidential ambitions since the former governor announced he was exploring a run in February, calling Weld's bid "a grandstanding political gambit that reeks of political opportunism."

"Even Benedict Arnold switched allegiances less often!" Lyons said at that time, referencing Weld's decision to re-register as a Republican after running on the Libertarian ticket in 2016. "We Republicans will put partisanship aside, reach across the aisle to Democrats, and Libertarians, and reject Bill Weld."